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Archive for January, 2008
Sunday, January 27th, 2008
Circumstances have left me a single dad this week, so it’s unlikely I’ll make it out to the picket line for more than a brief visit. (Toddlers enjoy signs and lines, but not for three hours at a stretch.)
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go. Go, and report back what you see.
Monday’s picketing is all centered at Fox, with SAG joining in solidarity. Any time you have actors on the picket line, the number of photographers increases exponentially, so it’s a good opportunity to get your face on the news — standing behind that guy from Desperate Housewives. Your mom will save it on the DVR for years, like my Mom did with the Broadcast Film Critics Awards, until the machine finally expired.
Can I just say I love SAG?
Throughout the strike, the media has had fun portraying a Good Cop/Bad Cop thing between the DGA and WGA. It’s not accurate at all, but here it goes: the DGA is reasonable and calm and polite (Good Cop), while the WGA is trashing the room and making threats (Bad Cop). The suspect (in this case, the AMPTP) would naturally prefer to deal with Good Cop, who professes to be on his side against the bully waiting out in the hall. “Just give me something I can use,” says Good Cop.
Extending this analogy, SAG is that wild-eyed guy you have locked up down the hall. Both Good Cop and Bad Cop are happy to point out that unless they can make some progress, the alternative is sharing a cell with That Guy. And he’s effing crazy. He’ll light his arm on fire.
For the record, I don’t think SAG is crazy or pyromaniac. I think they’re smart to point out that they have many of the same concerns about new media, along with other actor-specific issues. I suspect they’ll be out in force on Monday, not because they want to strike, but because they want to let everyone know they would and could.
Me? I’ll be explaining to a toddler why sofas aren’t for jumping, blocks aren’t for throwing, and blueberry pancakes aren’t the only food to eat.
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Sunday, January 27th, 2008
Atonement is one of the best motion pictures to reach theaters during the seventh year of the new millennium.
After helming 2005’s Pride & Prejudice, director Joe Wright has taken the reins of another adapted British love story in Atonement. Atonement is an absolutely marvelous screenplay executed to near perfection. The first half of the film is exceptional; it tests the audience and tells the story from two conflicting vantage points. The…
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Sunday, January 27th, 2008
 An intimate memorial for Heath Ledger, attended by immediate family and close friends including former girlfriend Naomi Watts, was held in Los Angeles on Saturday night just hours after the actor’s death was marked at a New York event.
A discreet 30-minute service was held at Westwood Village Memorial Park, Australia’s Channel 7 reports, during which Watts was “visibly upset.”
Around 8 p.m. that evening, a small gathering of black-dressed mourners, including the Australian actress, was seen in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel for a private event, a source said. Ledger’s rep had said that no public memorial was planned for Los Angeles.
Earlier, about 1,000 guests at an Australian event in New York heard a message from Ledger’s father, Kim Ledger, read by Australia’s consul-general.
“Heath did not become an actor for the fame or fortune. He loved his craft and he loved helping his friends. He loved chess and skateboarding too,” said the letter read to guests at the G’Day USA Australia Day Ball at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. “My image of Heath in New York is him with his skateboard, a canvas bag and his beanie. That was Heath to me.”
But mostly, Kim wrote, “Heath is and always will be an Australian.”
Kim, Ledger’s mother Sally and sister Kate were in Los Angeles on Saturday awaiting arrival of the actor’s body from New York, The Age reports. Ledger was found dead in his New York apartment on Tuesday. A cause of death has not been determined.
According to several Australian news reports, a memorial and burial in Ledger’s hometown of Perth are also expected.
The Los Angeles memorial was first reported by Entertainment Tonight.
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Saturday, January 26th, 2008
Tonight they handed out the trophies at Sundance: Unprepossessing plexiglass widgets that nevertheless carry a lot of weight. As expected, major awards were won by ?Trouble the Water,? (Grand Jury Prize for Documentary), "American Teen" (Best Directing: Documentary), and "Ballast" (both Directing: Dramatic and Excellence in Cinematography). Flying in under the radar was Courtney Hunt?s ?Frozen River,? about a desperately poor single mom (Melissa Leo) and a Mohawk girl (Misty Upham) who smuggle immigrants from Canada; it won the grand jury prize for dramatic film but until halfway through Quentin Tarantino's announcement of the award (see below), most people in the audience thought he was talking about "Ballast."
?Sleep Dealer,? a cyberpunk drama set in the near-future, won both the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and the Alfred P. Sloan for outstanding film focusing on science or technology. The audience award for documentary, voted on by festivalgoers, was ?Fields of Fuel,? about the alternative-fuels movement, while ?The Wackness? won the audience award for drama for its baroque comic look at a high school drug dealer (Josh Peck, of Nickelodeon?s ?Drake and Josh?) and his pothead therapist (Ben Kingsley).
One of my festival favorites won two awards in the world cinema categories. ?Man on Wire,? a poetic essay about tightrope walker Philippe Petit?s 1974 crossing of the World Trade Center towers, won both the audience award and the grand jury prize for documentaries. The Swedish coming-of-age drama ?King of Ping Pong? won the grand jury prize for drama as well as a cinematography prize, while ?Captain Abu Raed,? the first feature film to be made in Jordan in 50 years, won the world cinema audience award for drama. The full list of winners is at the Sundance site.
The Sundance awards aren?t a high-profile glamour sweepstakes like the Oscars or the Golden Globes. Actually, they?re more important: a crucial vote of approval to the filmmakers who need it most, those toiling in the fields of low-budget, independent fiction films and documentaries. Or as ?Ballast? cinematographer Lol Crawley said as he regarded his trophy with stunned bemusement, ?Well, this is going to help.?
Okay, now for some video, and time to put the kids to bed, 'cause some of this stuff is what your grandma would call salty. The awards ceremony was emceed by William H. Macy, who got well and truly risque in an opening riff that managed to tie half the titles of movies playing in the festival with an anecdote about hotel self-pleasure. And his wife was in the audience! Not all of it worked but points for trying, and more points for carrying off the ridiculous western outfit with aplomb.
Here's gentle giant Lance Hammer saying thanks to the jury for voting him best director in the U.S. dramatic category.
Here's "Trouble the Water" directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal tearing up while accepting the grand jury prize for U.S. documentary.
Cover junior's ears again: Quentin Tarantino hands out the grand jury prize for U.S. dramatic film with what's for him a reasonably sedate monologue.
"Frozen River" director and grand jury prize winner Courtney Hunt accepts her award.
I go home, go sleep now.
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Saturday, January 26th, 2008
 Fred Savage wants the world to know about his newest project – another child!
“We’ve got number two cooking right now,” Savage, 31, said at Saturday’s 60th annual Directors Guild of America Awards in L.A., pointing to his wife Jennifer Stone’s belly. The pair is already proud parents of a son.
“We’re due in May,” Savage revealed, but Stone said the baby’s name and sex are going to be a surprise.
Savage and Stone, childhood sweethearts who married in Aug. 2004, welcomed their first child, son Oliver, in Aug. 2006.
Asked whether they’re thinking more kids, Savage said with a smile, “That’s a discussion.”
Savage, who directed last year’s comedy feature Daddy Day Camp, was nominated for his second Directors Guild award Saturday, for his work on the Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place.
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Saturday, January 26th, 2008
 Lindsay Lohan and Brody Jenner avoided being photographed together Friday night as the two hit night clubs in New York, but while inside they got pretty cozy, sources says.
The pair were spotted “all over each other” at Beatrice Inn. They stayed about 30 minutes and then headed to another celebrity hot spot, The Box, along with buddy Frankie Delgado. Reportedly, they both lingered until 3:30 a.m.
“She likes him. It’s early, but they are more than friends,” a source says of Lohan. “He seems to like her back. They’re actually sweet together, it would be nice if she kept him around.”
On the other hand, Brody recently said that his “new girlfriend” Cora Skinner had “met the parents” and “She’s part of the family.”
It’s getting hard to keep up!
A rep for Jenner did not return calls for comment.
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Saturday, January 26th, 2008
 After months of speculation and rumor, the Kids are coming back. A well-placed source says that New Kids On The Block are indeed getting back together.
The band’s Web site, www.nkotb.com, which had been dormant, is now back up and running in anticipation of the official announcement, which the source says will be made in the next few weeks.
The site currently features a television graphic with a fuzzy, flickering photos of NKOTB in their heyday, and a link inviting fans to sign up for info.
The boy band, which made legions of tweens swoon in the early ’90s, selling more than 50 million albums, became a worldwide phenomenon before calling it quits in 1994.
Eighteen years later, they’re still “Hangin’ Tough.” The oldest “Kid,” Jonathan Knight, now a real estate developer, will turn 40 later this year. Since the band’s demise, former members Donnie Wahlberg, 38, and Joey McIntyre, 35, have seen acting success, while Danny Wood, 38, has worked as a music producer and Knight’s brother, Jordan, 37, has continued to record.
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Saturday, January 26th, 2008
 Mary-Kate Olsen made her first public appearance since the death of her friend Heath Ledger Thursday night with a “crazy” night out at Pianos on New York City’s lower east side.
“They came to see the band,” and were followed by a gang of paparazzi, according to one source. “They were following them,” says an onlooker.”It was crazy.”
Hanging out with her sister Ashley and a male companion, Mary-Kate enjoyed the live band and “they all had martinis,” says a source, adding, “They did not stay long. They were killing time before a party down the street.” According to New York’s Daily News, the soirée was down the street at Sweet Paradise.
On Friday, Olsen spoke out for the first time, calling Ledger’s death “tragic.”
Ledger, 28, and Olsen, 21, first met in the summer of 2006 and “were casually dating,” according to a source.
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Saturday, January 26th, 2008
Filed under: Action, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels  I was on a shuttle bus at Sundance when my wife text messaged me the news about Heath Ledger. By the time I made it off the bus, everyone was buzzing -- his death had hit the fest like a virus. It didn't take much time, and only a few hours later I started seeing stories from people wondering whether Ledger's death had anything to do with the amount of work he put into the role of Joker in this summer's The Dark Knight. When the New York Times interviewed him last month, Ledger admitted to locking himself in a hotel room for a month to get into character, then downing sleeping pills afterward to catch up on some much-needed rest. Though we're not entirely sure yet, it was most likely a combination of sleeping pills and other medication that did him in.
Warner Bros. has already toned down their aggressive Dark Knight marketing plan, turning the movie's official website into a make-shift shrine dedicated to the actor. So if it was this role that ultimately sent Ledger off in an unhealthy direction, why did he take it on in the first place. ComicMix currently has up an exclusive audio interview with Ledger, conducted last month, in which the actor explains why, exactly, he decided to take on the part. According to the actor, he had no interest in re-creating what Nicholson had so expertly displayed earlier, and that if Burton was directing this film he probably wouldn't have done it. But when Christopher Nolan asked Ledger to play Joker, he watched Batman Begins, saw a different angle he could take and jumped right in. You can check out the interview over here.
Personally, I think it's a cop out to blame a role in a movie for a person's death. Obviously actors and actresses take on all kinds of roles in any given year -- some of which are a lot more demanding than the Joker -- and they come away just fine. What it boils down to is the kind of person you are; how much pressure you put on yourself and what you do to alleviate that pressure. Our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family this weekend as they say goodbye to a man so many people loved dearly. Permalink | Email this | Comments
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